New Writing

UEA has appointed Booker-shortlisted Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga as its inaugural International Chair of Creative Writing. She will deliver a programme of literary events, classes and workshops across the African continent and in the UK from 2021 to 2022. This new position is one of a number of initiatives timed to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the UEA Creative Writing programme, which was founded by Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson in 1970. It will be offered to four more prominent writers over the next five years from Asia, Australasia, the Americas and the Middle East, each with a year-long remit to find, nurture and promote new voices from that region. The initiative will be complemented by Global Voices scholarships, offering 50 fully paid places on UEA’s MA course over five years. Dangarembga (pictured) is the author of plays, filmscripts and novels including Nervous Conditions (1988), which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and This Mournable Body, which was published by Faber and is shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. She is currently facing trial in Zimbabwe for participating in a peaceful anti-government protest.